Chapter 68: What I Want

Astrid

I woke up still turning over what I’d admitted to myself the night before. I didn’t want Reed and Xander to stay away. The thought still scared me, but I wasn’t trying to shove it back down anymore either.

At breakfast I sat with them deliberately, and Xander noticed immediately, of course he did, giving me a knowing look I chose to ignore entirely.

"Don’t start," I said.

He raised both hands, all innocence.

Reed stayed quieter than usual, more controlled somehow, if that was even possible for him. I watched him drink his coffee, barely glancing my way, and now that I knew why, his restraint was impossible not to notice.

I wondered how much longer he could keep doing this.

After classes, we settled in to work on the project, until Xander got pulled away by something academy-related, leaving Reed and me alone at the table. I tried focusing on the pages in front of me and failed completely.

Reed noticed. "Something on your mind?"

I hesitated, then asked, "Why are you still avoiding me?"

He went quiet. I told him I knew about the rut now, and asked if that was why he’d been acting strange.

He admitted it, though he didn’t elaborate further.

"You don’t have to keep pretending everything’s fine with me," I said gently.

He looked away. "I know."

"Then why won’t you tell me what you’re actually feeling?"

That question finally cracked something loose in him.

He looked at me directly. "You want the truth?"

I nodded.

"I want to touch you," he said. "I want to hold you. Feel you close."

His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth. "I want to kiss those lips of yours."

My breath caught somewhere in my throat.

"I want to ruin you," he said, quieter now, "in the worst way possible."

My face went hot. He didn’t make any of it graphic, but I understood the weight underneath every word, the intensity he’d been swallowing back for days.

"And yes, Astrid. There are things I want from you that I’m not going to pretend I don’t."

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He paused, and then, "But wanting them doesn’t give me the right to take them."

He made it clear, absolutely clear, that he wouldn’t use the rut, or the bond itself, as some excuse.

"If you ever let me have those things," he said, "I want it to be because you chose me."

That was what made the whole confession land as something other than desire alone.

I was flustered, my whole body warm, but I didn’t run.

"How long have you wanted that?" I asked instead.

He didn’t answer right away. Then he admitted his feelings hadn’t started with the rut. The rut had only intensified something that already existed. He remembered moments from before any of this, me challenging him, insulting him at the very beginning, laughing with Xander across some argument, sleeping beside him during the storm in the woods, never once treating him like a prince the way everyone else did.

He’d already been drawn to me long before any of this became complicated.

"Even before the bond?" I asked, stunned.

"Yes," he said simply.

That reassured something in me I hadn’t realized needed reassuring. Whatever was happening between us wasn’t purely biology. There had already been something there.

I admitted my own confusion in return. I didn’t know what I wanted. Part of me was still terrified, of the bond, of my history, of everything I’d survived to even get here. I was afraid that giving in to what I felt would mean losing control over my own life entirely.

He listened without arguing.

"Then don’t decide tonight," he said.

I looked at him. He told me I didn’t owe him an answer because he was in a rut. I didn’t owe him anything because we were mates. And I didn’t have to prove a single thing to him.

Something in my chest tightened unexpectedly, close to tears I hadn’t seen coming. Because he was giving me exactly what I’d been terrified the bond would strip away from me.

Choice.

I reached toward him, my hand settling lightly over his on the table. He went completely still, but this time he didn’t pull away.

"Is this okay?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

I kept my hand there. Such a small gesture, and yet after everything, after days of him forcing himself away from me, it felt enormous. He turned his hand slightly, letting our fingers rest together.

Neither of us spoke. The moment sat quiet and full between us, needing nothing explicit to matter.

I realized I wasn’t afraid of touching him anymore.

I might actually like it.

Then nerves caught up with me and I pulled my hand back. He let me go without complaint, without chasing it. He never chased.

Xander returned shortly after, glancing between the two of us immediately, his expression shifting with obvious understanding.

"Did I miss something?" he asked.

I felt my face go warm all over again. Reed told him to stop. Xander grinned, though underneath the teasing I caught something softer, some quiet awareness that I seemed more at ease than before.

He didn’t demand equal attention. Didn’t make it a competition.

"Whenever you’re ready, trouble," he said instead, easy and unbothered, and I understood he’d wait exactly as long as he needed to.

That night, lying awake, I kept replaying Reed’s words. If you ever let me have those things, I want it to be because you chose me.

His desire hadn’t frightened me the way I expected it to.

What frightened me was how badly I’d wanted to hear it.

I still didn’t know if I was ready to accept the bond completely. But I wasn’t pretending I felt nothing anymore, not to myself, not to either of them.

I thought about our hands together on that table, how badly I’d wanted to keep holding on.

I pulled the pillow over my face, entirely unable to stop the small, ridiculous smile that followed the thought.